How a Radical New Teaching Method Could Unleash a Generation of Geniuses: School had never been challenging for her. She sat in rows with the other students while teachers told the kids what they needed to know. It wasn’t hard to repeat it back, and she got good grades without thinking too much. As she headed into fifth grade, she… Read more →
Chrome split screen extension
Purely Paperless: Tech Tip Tuesday: Split Screen Chrome Extension writes: One extension that I have been loving lately is the Split Screen extension. With Split Screen, you can view two different web pages simultaneously without have to toggle between two different tabs or constantly resize your screens. As a recovering browser-tab abuser, I am pretty notorious for having WAY too… Read more →
Learn Python from Google
Google’s Python Lessons are Awesome: The lovably geeky Nick Parlante — a Google employee and CS lecturer at Stanford — has written some awesomely succinct tutorials that not only tell you how you can use Python, but also how you should use Python. This makes them a fantastic resource, regardless of whether you’re just starting, or you’ve been working with… Read more →
Selling your vision
The importance of selling your vision writes: A team aligned behind a vision will move mountains. Sell them on your roadmap and don’t compromise — care about the details, the fit and finish. Only work with those that have (as Larry Page puts it) “a healthy disregard for the impossible,” and push everyone on your team until it’s uncomfortable. Kevin Rose writes… Read more →
Storytelling tips from Andrew Stanton
The 5 Rules of Storytelling Every Teacher Should Know about A good story does have to abide by certain rules and these rules are learned through practice. Andrew Stanton, the Pixar writer and director behind both Toy Story and WALL-E, talks some of these rules in his popular TED Talk, The clues to a great story. Also related, Kurt Vonnegut’s… Read more →
No more tests, homework, tutoring for Chinese students
China Enters “Testing-free” Zone: The New Ten Commandments of Education Reform writes: No standardized tests, no written homework, no tracking. These are some of the new actions China is taking to lessen student academic burden. The Chinese Ministry of Education released Ten Regulations to Lessen Academic Burden for Primary School Students this week for public commentary. The Ten Regulations are… Read more →
The tide is turning against the use value-added scores with individual teachers
Value added methods is a research methodology designed to be used at a building or district level to guage the effectiveness of instructional strategies, materials, and other aspects of how a school teaches. It was never designed to be used at the individual teacher level. In a briefing from leading education researchers to policymakers, three reasons were given on why… Read more →
Portable USB battery options
I saw Scott’s post on the Lenmar Power Pack and that reminded me that I had been wanting to post my portable power options. My first USB charger was a Duracell model I picked up at Meijer on the discountinued rack several years ago. It worked ok, but since them I’ve upgraded. 🙂 First up is the Tekkeon MP1580 TEKCHARGE… Read more →
Using an iPad with your reading workshop
How Technology Can Support and Enhance Your Reading Workshop writes: As with most of my planning, I started with the end in mind. I thought to myself, “What if students could jot their thinking down, in real time, and receive feedback without interrupting the workshop?” Even if they didn’t receive feedback in the moment, could they at least jot their… Read more →
“I guess I’m a loose leaf loser”
The History of the Trapper Keeper “The Trapper Keeper is one of the most recognized school brands of all time,” says Jessica Hodges, Director of School Marketing for ACCO Brands. It’s also a prominent pop culture touchstone: Trapper Keepers have been featured on Family Guy, Dawson’s Creek, South Park, Full House, and Napoleon Dynamite. They were transformed into a Trivial… Read more →